My doorbell rang on December 23, 2024, and as promised, my friend Mary Hannah Wilson “dropped off” something to me. The “something” was a gaily decorated tin with “Happy Holidays” on the lid. The Gingerbread Man joined with other cookies to surround a red cup with “Joy” written across the face; the cup is filled with a dark liquid in which marshmallows float, and from which red-and-white striped sticks protrude. Holly sprigs and other berry-laden bushes complete the tableau. When I opened the tin, I found it full of homemade cookies. The “Christmas Cookie” tradition was in full swing.
I don’t know where or when it became traditional to gift your friends and neighbors with cookies around the December holidays, and I had not thought about it until that December day when I got the tin from Mary. Karen, my next-door neighbor, likes to bake, and I am often the recipient of warm cookies from her. The same week that Mary gifted me cookies, Karen had already shared her baked bread with me. Karen was also the heart behind “The Giving Plate” that circulated in my neighborhood in early 2024. When someone received the plate, which had gifts of food and dry teas, we were to secretly send it on with our own gifts. But in the December period of giving, my joy was embodied in the cookies that Irvington’s Harmony Collected Chorus spread about on December 22.
I’ve written about the choral group that I joined last year, and the concerts that we have given at the Irvington Presbyterian Church. Our final concert of the year was in the form of caroling about the streets of Irvington. We started in the balcony of the church, singing to whomever was in attendance. We returned to the rehearsal room, dressed warmly, and went outside to sing from the front steps of the church. Cars slowed to watch and hear, and Webb Parker, our director, waved his invisible wand to guide us. We then paraded East on Julian Street to South Audubon, singing as we walked. As we passed people on the street, they showed appreciation for our gifts of song, quietly cheering, and clapping. We gathered on the South Circle and sang to those there. Some young people had climbed into the trees above us and urged us on; adults on the ground graced us with thanks. We broke ranks and went back North on Audubon to the rear of the church, where we completed our sharing of holiday cookies by giving songs to ourselves.
Long ago, when I worked for a company in St. Louis Missouri, I sent a “holiday cookie” e-mail to everyone in the advertising department where I labored. I’ve written of this before, on these pages, but the gift was of a poem by James Wright, called “A Blessing.” I cannot remember what motivated me to first send out that poem, but after some initial confusion from the recipients, they understood that I simply wanted to share, in a nondenominational way, some of the joy that I had found in the poem. The holiday cookie does not have to have chocolate chips in it, but can sometimes take the form of a poem, and on the night of the Irvington Luminaria, be represented in song.
By the time that this is printed, we will have turned the page on the year 2024; some of us will be happier than others about the year that passed. I hope that as we counted down the time, we tried to remember the cookies that we shared and received.
cjon3acd@att.net